Hoosier runner plans to take his cause on the road

November 03, 2006

Twenty-six miles down, 3,000 miles to go. Steve Ivanovich of Valparaiso, Ind., ran the Chicago Marathon two weeks ago, wearing his heart on his sleeve and a message on his chest. Across the front of his running shirt read: "For those who are wrongfully accused." Thousands of spectators and fellow competitors probably wondered what circumstances were behind that phrase. "Nobody should spend a minute in jail for crimes they did not do," Steve says. "And it blows my mind how much it happens." His primary example is Richard Alexander of South Bend, who was wrongfully convicted in 1998 of being the River Park rapist and spent five years in jail before DNA evidence linked two other men to the crimes. Steve's wife, Roseann Ivanovich, has been Alexander's attorney. "And then he gets nothing for it -- no money," Steve adds. "The legal system tells him good luck and, by the way, get your life together even though we aren't going to give you anything for your five years in jail." So next summer, Steve, a builder by trade, is hoping to make a trek across America -- from San Francisco to the Statue of Liberty -- to raise funds and awareness for people like Richard Alexander. "I'm obviously going to have to get some major sponsorships to be able to do this," he admits. "But it's a goal I really want to do." "And if he says he is going to do it, he will," his wife, Roseann, says. A trek like that -- "in less than 100 days'' -- wouldn't be easy for even the fittest of athletes, and Steve, 45, will have to overcome some health issues that have plagued him in recent years. A former amateur boxer from the Gary area and the father of four daughters, he has a fused spine and suffers from diabetes and hypertension. Yet he made it through the Chicago Marathon in about 4 1/2 hours despite a painful knee and his Clydesdale running size of 226 pounds. "But I weighed 285 pounds before I started training," he says. He knows what it's like to suffer, both as a long-distance runner and a boxer. "But that is so minuscule for what an innocent guy like Richard Alexander went through -- spending 23 hours a day in a hole of a cell," Steve says. Although he doesn't want to go into his own history with the law, he does admit that he can sympathize with Alexander from personal experiences. "I just think there are times when prosecutors and cops conspire together to convict someone without all the evidence in hand -- or with tainted evidence," Steve says. He does credit Indiana State Trooper Ryan Harmon for continuing to work for the release of Alexander but scoffs at another police officer's $100 gift to Alexander after that officer helped convict him. "What does that add up to? Something like 4.9 cents a day for the time he was incarcerated." Alexander, with Roseann continuing as his attorney, sued the city for wrongful conviction but lost his appeal. He had argued that the police had violated his constitutional rights by showing witnesses and victims a faulty photo array of potential suspects, conducting a "suggestive" photo lineup, destroying evidence and conspiring to arrest him because he was black. Since his release, Alexander has had other run-ins with the law, but one neighbor in his South Bend neighborhood praised him for his good deeds in a Tribune article earlier this year. "But, really, how can you expect somebody to be a nice person after spending five years in jail for something he didn't do and not to have a system that would repay him for lost wages," Steve says. "The system protects itself and makes two victims -- the one victimized in the first place and the one wrongfully accused." Steve wants to do something about it. He wants to raise money for the wrongfully accused and maybe change the system, too. Tune in next summer when he plans to take his cause on the road -- 3,000 miles of it. Bill Moor's column appears on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at bmoor@sbtinfo.com, or write him at the South Bend Tribune, 225 W. Colfax Ave., South Bend, IN 46626; (574) 235-6072.Bill Moor Commentary